WASHINGTON — Jimmy Rollins looked at the 2006 Phillies, their youth, their depth, their arms, their eyes, then bent over a microphone and said that the 2007 Phillies were the team to beat. Someday, when there is a statue of him at Citizens Bank Park, that will be inscribed on its base.

The team. To beat.

That was then, and it sounded good, and it was. That’s because for the next five years, the Phillies ruled the National League East, mixed in a world championship, a pennant and a dozen bobblehead-worthy heroes before turning older and slower and too prone to warning-track outs.

So there was Rollins again Wednesday in Nationals Park after the Phillies had just lost, 5-1, to end a season when they were the team to beat 81 times. He was surrounded by different Phillies, and he was smothered in different results. But in what has become his trademark, he took a deep breath and made this declaration about the N.L. East, and its new champion, the Washington Nationals.

“Us being healthy,” he said. “They are still second place.”

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The best team, he implied, still. The best team, even though the Nationals were still squeegeeing the champagne from their clubhouse carpets, days after celebrating a division championship. The best team, regardless. It was less unsportsmanlike than it was typical. It was a little unnecessary in the moment, yet it was Rollins, as always.

But that was what the Phillies were trying to tell themselves after a miserable season, literally until its final innings. It is what Rollins was pronouncing in the room. It’s what Charlie Manuel was humming in his office. It was the mental therapy the Phillies had been applying to themselves from Clearwater forward, reminding everyone that Chase Utley was injured and Ryan Howard was injured and Roy Halladay was injured, too.

A hard-luck season was their implication — a once-every-six-years fluke, baseball at its most cruel. Yet there was Cliff Lee, who’d just struck out seven in six innings, finishing the season with a 3.16 ERA and yet with a 6-9 record, a victim all season of a shriveling offense. And when asked if the Phillies have what it takes to be champions again in 2013, he didn’t exactly bring the high and inside heat.

“I don’t know,” the left-hander said, as if deep in thought. “I am not the G.M. I know Ruben (Amaro) has a job that he’s got to do. I think we need some pieces here and there. But for the most part, we’ve got the core pieces that it’s going to take. I’m willing to bet that Ruben is going to go into this offseason and do everything he can to improve the team.”

Amaro will have money to spend, and he should have a nod of approval to do that from Dave Montgomery, who already OK’d a max contract for Cole Hamels. He’ll have a long offseason, giving Utley and Howard time to rest and grow healthy for one more championship push. But if he has the fantasy that all the Phillies need is an attitude adjustment, which is what he rambled about around this time last year, he will be lucky next October if he avoids a losing record.

“I think we are definitely going to have some changes on our roster,” Manuel said. “We will try to get better and get back to a position where we think we can win our division and have a chance to win the World Series.”

The Phillies scored in one inning of their final 2010 game, called it a season and said it would change.

The Phillies scored no runs in the final 2011 game, called it a season and said it would change.

The Phillies played their final 2012 game Wednesday, scored in one inning and called it a season...and then began to change their coaching staff, firing Sam Perlozzo, Pete Mackanin and hitting coach Greg Gross.

It’s a start to an offseason that needs to be busy.

That’s because when the Phillies say they are the team to beat now, it only sounds like something that someday should be on the base of a statue.